ITLS be gone

Since the ITLS instructor was familiar with the school and the students, he decided to make us do real life scenarios to pass (including starting IVs, etc) which were much more complex than the normal ITLS skills stations. So my 'patient' was a 75 year old man who cracked his hip and banged his head on the coffee table as he was on his way to the washroom in the middle of the night.

I had a partner who is a volunteer firefighter during his off time, so it was a really fantastic match. While I was focusing on the patient, my parter was delegating our backup crew to get a scoop instead of a backboard, etc. We got everything done in good time, with minimal pain shifted the old chap onto the stretcher and got him to the ambulance with no issue. He had CHF and was a bigger man so that maintaining his airway was difficult to manage given he was scooped and the stretcher head was not staying up, but we did the best we could. We passed and the written exam was simple.

It was painful sitting through 2 days of lecture on what took us 3 months to learn. Seems so simple now. What isn't simple is real life scenarios and undoubtedly real life emergencies. It takes a special kind of emergency nazi to take care of everything properly, delegate and take vitals.

I need to become Kali-like somehow. The extra hands would come in handy methinks.